ETC/ATNI Report 3/2020: Analysis of the air pollution policies and measures reported under the National Emissions reduction Commitments Directive (NECD).
This report describes the main characteristics of Member States’ additional air pollutant PaMs reported through the EEA PaM tool as required by Directive (EU) 2016/2284 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the reduction of national emission of certain atmospheric pollutants (the ‘NECD’). The report also explores the potential synergies between air pollution and climate PaMs that Member States report under the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (MMR, EU 525/2013).
10 Dec 2020
Katrina Young, Lucy Garland, Luke Jones, Federico Antognazza, Kathryn Hampshire
Prepared by:
Katrina Young, Lucy Garland, Luke Jones (Aether Limited)
Directive (EU) 2016/2284 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the reduction of national emission of certain atmospheric pollutants (the ‘NECD’) requires Member States to report additional policies and measures (PaMs) through the EEA PaM tool that the Member States considered and selected in view of fulfilling their emissions reduction commitments. Of these PaMs reported through the EEA PaM too, the transport sector had the highest number of individual PaMs selected for adoption reported, followed by agriculture, and energy consumption and supply. This is not all that surprising given the persisting air pollution issues in these sectors, although conclusions on the quality of the PaMs cannot be drawn from the actual quantity of PaMs. One third (116) of the PaMs reported as selected for adoption were submitted under both NECD and the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (MMR, EU 525/2013), showing that a significant number of PaMs that will reduce air pollutant emissions will also reduce GHG emissions. However, there is a potential lack of synergy in policies around the use of solid biomass; air pollution policies aim to decrease its usage due to the negative impacts on air pollution, whereas climate policies aim to increase its usage due to the reduction in GHG emissions compared to fossil fuels. Further integration of the air pollution and climate policy reporting systems could foster coherence across the two policy domains and support the identification of synergies and conflicts.
